Jubilee Heart

As always, thanks all for the lovely comments on my posts, they are always enjoyed and gratefully received.


I gave you a peek in my last post at the project I had started... it was the free kit from the Cross Stitcher magazine.  I managed to get it finished in bed this morning!  Just scraping in at the start of the Jubilee weekend!

I'm quite pleased with the finished item.  I'm not really that into the British themed thing (I know, travesty!) but I thought it would be nice to have a souvenir of the Jubilee, and I do like it now it's finished!

I wasn't that impressed with the kit, though.  I thought the felt was stiff and cheap.  The embroidery threads also felt cheap and weren't very nice to work with.  They weren't nice and smooth, they were fibrey, splitty and break-y (I can't think of the real words to describe them, so they'll have to do!!).  The needle they provided you with was so thin and flimsy, and a nightmare to thread with the cheap splitty thread!  Yes, I have loads of my own needles I could have used - but I was stubbornly insisting on using what I was provided with in the kit (for some unfathomable reason - as it only made my life more difficult!)  In the end, while doing the blanket stitch, the needle actually snapped in half! I did then reach for one of my needles which was far better to work with.  (I know, why didn't I use it all along - damn my weird ideas!)  Also, the thread was cut into such short lengths, that I seemed to be constantly tying the ends off and starting a new thread, which was annoying.  None more so than when doing the blanket stitch!!  If I had my own thread, I'd have cut a piece long enough to go all the way round - as I really struggle with ending blanket stitch.  (If anyone has any genius method to end blanket stitch, while keeping the stitches looking neat and uniform, PLEASE let me know!!!)  Usually it's bad enough having to do it once at the end - but I had to do it FIVE (yes, five!!) times to sew up the heart!  Even more difficult when you then have to start again, and somehow join the new to the old, to keep the proper blanket stitch effect going.  There is one point where I made a rather bad job, which is annoying me in the pictures!  Oh well...  Oh, and it said that the kit provided you with everything you need to make the heart - but it didn't provide filling.  This isn't a problem for me, as I had filling - but they should have specified that it wasn't included.


Wow, what a rant!!!  I don't usually get rant-y in my posts!  And I guess it was a free kit, included with the magazine, so maybe I shouldn't complain.  But I have now, too late!!  ;o)


But on the plus side, I am pleased with the end result after all that moaning, and the finished item doesn't seem cheap.  Oh, and the soluble cross stitch fabric thingy you use to sew through onto the felt was pretty cool!

So - happy long bank holiday people!  Enjoy the Jubilee celebrations!